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Nuisance "Engine System Service Required"

Wifey Mobile here. She'll drive it for a week or more and then out of the blue she'll tell me "there's some message on the thingy on car"
So I take a look sure enough "Engine System Service Required" indicator appeared (screen on left of dash). This was about 7-8 months back. Car runs excellently. I connected the OBD II reader, read codes = "PASS NO CODES". The I hit erase codes = "PASS NO CODES TO ERASE". I drive it down the road, punch it and allow to slow down, turn around and on the way home I notice the message is no longer there?

Then recently, Friday 5/20/11, Wifey tells me - well you know. So today I connect up the OBD II and same as above, nothing nada zip. Do the old erase codes and receive same message "PASS NO CODES TO ERASE". Drive it down the road punch it, turn around come home message still in window. Put the code reader away and figured I'd check liquids - all were fine. Start the car up and no message displayed???

You go to Volvo and THEY pull the code(s) with VIDA.
Put your silly code reader away
That's the only way you can find out what's going on.

You keep burying your head in the sand and one day something will come out of there and bite you in the arse!

There are other higher level readers out there that will read Volvo codes and some indies have them so it's not imperative that you go to the stealership assuming you can find a decent so-equipped indy. Now if programming is involved, then yes it appears that for most things VADIS/VIDA is required. In any case, you should get the appropriate scan done as it is possible that you have something serious going on even though the car is presently running OK.

Unfortunately, most of the "consumer-grade" readers are only valid for OBD-2 standard codes and not the increasingly used OBD-2 codes that the regulation reserved for OEM-specific purposes. Another screw job being perpetrated on the car-buying public by the manufacturers.

Now this is an unfortunate coincidence! That message "engine system check required" appeared on my MY '04 last night with the yellow warning indicator (not red, as OP said his was). This is a long weekend here so I'll have to wait until Tuesday before having anyone look at it.